Configuring a New Listing Portal

Front Desk, a service developed by Propertybase, allows you to capture leads from several online real estate portals. However, there are still many portals that are not supported (yet!) This article will explain the steps necessary connect to a new portal and start importing leads into your Propertybase account. Before following the steps below, make sure your portal of choice is not already supported.

1. Send First Test Lead

First, you need to send a test lead to your unique Front Desk email address. Instructions for locating that address can be found here. To do this, update the main contact email on the portal to your Front Desk address. Then send a test lead by filling out the entire inquiry form on the portal website.

Note: You must fill out every single available inquiry field on the portal form.

By filling out every field on the form, you are sending the most data possible to our Customer Support Team. This allows them to identify and map every available portal field to existing fields in your Propertybase account. Alternatively, having missing fields will result in errors when a potential lead fills them out in the future.

When entering a test lead, make sure to use information that is easily identifiable as test data. See the table below for example entries:

Form Field Name

Example Test Data

First Name

FIRSTNAME_TEST

Last Name

LASTNAME_TEST

Email

FRONTDESK_TEST@example.com

Phone

1234567890

By using entries like the examples above, you will help our Support Team immediately recognize the incoming lead as a test.

Note: You must update the main email address on the portal to your Front Desk address when sending the test lead. Simply forwarding a test lead email from a separate inbox to your Front Desk address will not work.

Once your request has been received, our Support Team will look for the test lead. Once found, they will identify whether or not a new parser needs to be created. If a parser already exists, the Support Team will configure your account to start receiving leads immediately. If a parser does not exist, our Support Team will notify you that one needs to be created, and provide a estimated time for completion.

If our Support Team needs to create a new parser for you, they may need you to send several additional test leads to test the parser is working correctly. If this is the case, make sure to change the "from" email address for the test lead each time. For example: FRONTDESK_TEST_2@example.com, FRONTDESK_TEST_3@example.com, FRONTDESK_TEST_4@example.com, etc.

3. Mapping Portal Fields

The final step in configuring a new portal integration is mapping external portal fields to their Propertybase counterparts. Standard fields like "first name", "last name", "phone", "bedrooms", etc. are easy to map. However, some fields are unique to your brokerage or may not exist in Propertybase. When this is the case, our Support Team will work with you to create necessary fields and map them correctly. This may take several back-and-forth correspondences between you and our Support Team.

FAQs

Missing Information or Incorrect Field Mapping

If information is missing from leads or appearing in the wrong fields, this is most likely due to a change in the format that the portal sends to Front Desk. It could also be an issue with the Front Desk parser. If this is the case, please submit a new support request with the following information:

The name of the contact in your Propertybase account

The email of the contact in your Propertybase account

The time and date that the lead was received

The name of the portal that sent the lead

Any error messages (if applicable)

Once the information above has been received, our Support Team will work to resolve the issue.

Using Multiple Portals

If you would like to setup more than one portal, start by sending a list to our Support Team. They will help you identify which are already available (if any) and work to formulate a plan for integrating each portal.

Forwarding Leads to Front Desk

We highly recommend against forwarding leads to Front Desk. When you forward an email, the underlying source text changes the format of the email (even if it appears visually the same.) Always setup your real estate portal to forward leads directly to Front Desk.